Authors: M. Obaidul Hamid Pages: 11 - 29 Abstract: Against the colonial origin and its initial global spread and the neo-colonial hegemony of English, this article calls for interrogating the English of the English curriculum in postcolonial societies, taking Bangladesh as a case study. It is argued that while the English language has been subjected to recurrent theorising in the neighbouring fields of Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics, the changing understandings of English seem to have had limited influence on English studies in Bangladesh. To illustrate the point, the author takes an autoethnographic approach and provides an account of his experience of studying English at the University of Dhaka. He also seeks to explain why academics in the fields of English Literature and Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching (ELT) have had limited cross-disciplinary interaction in the greater interest of both fields. The author concludes that the much-desired goal of decolonising policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and knowledge-making may not be achieved without questioning the English language. It is suggested that the way forward may be to consider English as a Southern language which will allow for its localisation and its deployment along the lines of Southern epistemologies and epistemic pluralism. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Gayatri Thanu Pillai, Chitra Sankaran Pages: 30 - 46 Abstract: This paper explores ways in which reconfigurations of agency can be identified in the representation of women, nature, and other subdominant groups in Som- erset Maugham’s Southeast Asian stories. Through their power to affect the phys- ical and emotional well-being of white settlers, native women and nature emerge as agentic. Thus they realign their assigned place within oppressive systems of domination whereas white women are placed in emotionally and physically pre- carious spaces. Using postcolonial, ecocritical, and ecofeminist concepts, this pa- per explores connections between human culture and non-human nature. Maugham’s texts are examined from posthumanist and material feminist perspec- tives to unearth ways in which both human and the non-human subaltern coun- teract or contend with marginalisation. Our study foregrounds the contested and fraught spaces that white and native women were forced to negotiate in colonial settlements. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Majedah Abdullah Alaiyed Pages: 47 - 65 Abstract: This paper describes the results of a study of linguistic variation in the religious discourse of six Najd-based Saudi preachers: three females and three males. The principal focus is on the use of the standard and colloquial variants of the variable /q/: the uvular stop /q/ and the voiced velar stop /g/. The study also accounts for the structural constraints in the use of the diglossic variant of /q/. The results show that both male and female preachers switch from one variant to the other and tend to use the Standard Arabic /q/ more frequently than its Najdi variant /g/. However, females tend to use the Najdi variant /g/ less often than male preachers do. Regarding the constraints of mixing within the same word, the Standard Arabic /q/ is used in the stem of the verb with a Najdi Arabic prefix. No examples were found of /g/ with a Standard Arabic prefix. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Abdulhafeth Ali Khrisat Pages: 66 - 79 Abstract: This paper examines Italian Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso’s epic poem titled Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered [1581]). Tasso imaginatively narrates events and details from the siege of Antioch and Jerusalem in the First Crusade and compares historical Muslim characters with their Christian counterparts. Like other Orientalists, Tasso in his epic adopts a stereotypical image of Muslims and portrays them as savages and worshipers of idols. This paper explains these images, their sources, and the effects of representations by way of applying analytical and critical descriptive method. It will address Tasso’s epic style, blending specific titles of history and magic with his fantasy in his portrayal of Muslim characters as compared to their Christian counterparts. It concludes with a critique of the Orientalist practice of associating the Muslims with terrorism, violence, and inhumanity in contemporary Western culture. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Zahra Sadeghi, Alireza Anushiravani, Samira Sasani Pages: 80 - 95 Abstract: While much has been written on the relation between identity and migration as well as the inconsistent meaning of belonging, little attention has been paid to Iranian migrant women and their influence on the changing meaning of transcultural citizenship. This study focuses on Farnoosh Moshiri’s Against Gravity and analyses Iranian female characters depicted in the novel, Roya in particular, in light of theories of Stuart Hall and Homi Bhabha. This article deals with the fluidity of cultural identity, bilingualism, and the role of narratives as productive and emancipatory forces in helping diasporas change their position from victimisation to consciousness. The character Roya Saraabi spends a few years as a refugee in Afghanistan and India, then goes to Houston in the USA with her daughter Tala. This article discusses the multiplicity of selves and argues that Iranian migrant women’s transcultural hybrid identity, intellectual bilingualism, and diasporic narratives increase their transnational mobility, help them maintain their free existence, and allow them to question the stereotypical categorisation and national, cultural, and identitarian boundaries. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Randa Kullab, Looi Wai Ling, Emily Lau Kui-Ling Pages: 96 - 110 Abstract: Metaphors illuminate the cognitive processes of human minds. They have been treated as a translational dilemma for decades, as their translatability along with the procedures utilised to translate them have been problematic for researchers. This present study problematises the translation of cultural metaphors in Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry by applying the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the chief framework and links it to postcolonial theory to provide some evidence of cognitive differences between the source metaphor and the target metaphor. This paper gives an account of how the meanings of Mahmoud Darwish’s cultural metaphors are lost in translation due to the host culture, that is, the coloniser culture. Findings reveal that the cultural and historical values of some metaphors have been eliminated. The trajectory of this elimination lies in the disparity between coloniser and colonised cultures. This paper advocates the retaining of the source language cultures and values as a form of resistance to the colonial impact that has overshadowed the culture of the colonised. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
Authors:Goutam Karmakar Pages: 111 - 127 Abstract: This article aims to portray the suffering and trajectories of female prostitutes in Rizia Rahman’s novel Rokter Okkhor (1978), translated into English as Letters of Blood by Arunava Sinha in 2016. By using the radical feminist perspective, the constructive framework of this paper aims to project the social and cultural restraints as well as the hegemonic power relations and male dominance in the lives of female prostitutes portrayed in the novel. Considering neo-abolitionist feminist viewpoints, this paper focuses exclusively on the experience of specific hierarchies, male domination, violence, and old-age problem on the part of the female prostitutes working in an unlicensed brothel in the fictional place of Golapipatti, Bangladesh as depicted in Rahman’s novel. Additionally, the paper also seeks to demonstrate how prostitution and the threat of being classified a ‘prostitute’ work as an impediment to female prostitutes’ heterosexual engagement and are used as a tool of female oppression. PubDate: 2021-12-11 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 2 (2021)
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